IF IT'S A CRIME, HE'S THE SLEUTH

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

Even when he's not speaking, he compels attention, his face like an unmade bed (the lower lip seems slightly rearranged), and his eyes darting the room as if casing it. When he does talk, about "harassing the hell" out of people to speed the investigation or having "100 agents out there working their butts off," it is hard to look away or to disbelieve him. Technically, James Kallstrom, 53, the head of the FBI's New York office, is the No. 2 federal official on the TWA Flight 800 investigation, after Robert Francis of the National Transportation Safety Board. Yet Kallstrom's whole demeanor screams out that he's the one running this show. And the instant that forensic evidence points to sabotage, he will assume the status formally.

He is hardly the stereotypical FBI middle manager, necktie and emotions neatly knotted. A gravel-voiced George Patton devotee who dresses like he just came off a stakeout, Kallstrom has been the investigator most forthright about suggesting that a bomb or a missile downed the plane. The inevitable qualifier, that an accident still may be the cause, is usually appended minus enthusiasm. Discussing the victims has brought him to tears; he admitted early on that "a very, very close friend of mine, 25 years" (later identified as Janet Christopher, the wife of FBI agent Charles Christopher), was a senior flight attendant on Flight 800. So as a self-described "advocate" for the victims' relatives, Kallstrom prodded the balky Suffolk County medical-examiner's office into taking on more staff. He stated publicly that he was "very impatient" with how slowly some of the other agencies were moving. Indeed, to a TV audience, center stage might seem his best mode. His admission that "you cannot work a case like this without emotions getting into your bloodstream" was typically heartfelt, and typically quotable.

Kallstrom's refreshingly unguarded manner is the habit of a career that up to now has been played out quietly, often in the dark. Recruited after his service as a Marine captain in Vietnam, Kallstrom joined the bureau in 1970, developing a specialty in surveillance. By the mid-1980s his "wires-and-pliers guys" were the toast of Manhattan law enforcement. Their biggest coup originated when, posing as a garbage detail, they wired the Harlem headquarters of Genovese crime-family don Anthony ("Fat Tony") Salerno. The resulting Puzo-esque audiotape was critical in jailing Salerno and two other crime leaders for 100-year terms. Boasted Kallstrom: "The streets up there have never been so clean."

After several similar successes--his troops managed to plant a bug in John Gotti's couch--Kallstrom was named head of the FBI's engineering section. In 1993 and '94 he helped bureau director Louis Freeh sell Congress on the need to make new telecommunications technology accessible to wiretaps. When Freeh gave him his present job in 1995, a high-profile case was only a matter of time. Kallstrom's colleagues think he will rise to the occasion. Says Bill Baker, the bureau's former assistant director for criminal investigations: "He's about as perfect as you can get for crisis management."

Kallstrom promised to subordinate his desire to uncover clues to the families' need to recover bodies. "They [aren't] that interested in who did this right now," he says. "They may be interested in that later." When their attention shifts, he plans to deliver.

--By David Van Biema. Reported by Elaine Shannon/Washington

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington